1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to tinnitus therapy, and more particularly, to treating tinnitus by selecting either a masking method or a retraining therapy.
2. Description of the Related Art
Tinnitus is a condition which causes a person to perceive noises in their ear when no external sound is present, due to an abnormal stimulus of a hearing nerve. It is caused by a disease of the ear, mental excitement, or a vascular disorder. Tinnitus often takes the form of a ringing sound, which may be intermittent or constant, varies from low to high pitch, and occurs usually in one ear or sometimes in both ears.
Between 15 and 20 percent of adults have experienced some type of tinnitus, and 4 percent of those have suffered from serious symptoms. The most typical cause of the tinnitus is damage to the hearing nerve, and in middle age, the hearing nerve can be somewhat degenerated or damaged, and thereby, ringing in the ears may occur. Recently it has been noted that exposure to loud noises such as industrial noise, loud music, and the use of stereo headphones commonly induces tinnitus. Other causes vary from too much earwax to a serious disease.
As the causes of tinnitus are diverse, treatments are varied, including medication, surgery for conditions such as a brain tumor, vascular disease and muscle disease, a masking method which masks the perception of the tinnitus using a hearing aid-style device that produces a noise similar to, but louder than the tinnitus sound, and a tinnitus retraining therapy in which a quieter sound than the tinnitus is constantly provided, ranging over a wide frequency spectrum, to treat the tinnitus without accompanying hearing loss.
Tinnitus treatments have been continuously studied to develop various tinnitus treatment devices. U.S. Pat. No. 6,047,074 entitled ‘Programmable hearing aid operable in a mode for tinnitus therapy’ discloses a programmable digital hearing aid including a signal converter, an amplifier, a digital signal processor, a memory, and acoustoelectrical input and output transducers. The programmable digital hearing aid is operable in a mode for tinnitus therapy using a tinnitus masking method. U.S. Pat. No. 6,610,019 entitled ‘Method and device for treatment of monofrequency tinnitus utilizing sound wave cancellation techniques’ discloses a method and device for treating monofrequency tinnitus patients utilizing wave cancellation techniques, which includes a sound generator, a pair of headphones, and a phase shift network. Also, the patent discloses another device including a means for selectively coupling a phase shifted output wave to remove a tinnitus tone transmitted to a patient. U.S. Pat. No. 6,682,472 entitled ‘Tinnitus rehabilitation device and method’ discloses a device and method which provide an audio signal spectrally modified in accordance with a predetermined masking algorithm designed to modify the intensity of the audio signal at a selected frequency, and this tinnitus rehabilitation device may be employed in conjunction with a personal music player.
However, since the related art does not consider the hearing characteristics of individuals, and attempts to uniformly treat tinnitus patients having different symptoms, a therapy suitable for each patient cannot be provided.